Brandy's Chubby Kitty Diet

So you know that recently, I lost my beloved Psycho (aka AngelPuss, BoojieWoojie, and other creative names I have come up with) to cancer. I really took it to heart and did a LOT of research on what could have caused it, how it came upon us so fast (she had recently had some extensive tests not showing anything to worry about, besides the diabetes which we were already treating her for), and how to prevent our other furry babies from meeting the same fate.

The first thing I noticed, was that Brandy was starting to follow the same health pattern as Psycho. When we adopted Psycho, she was a little bit overweight and the vet told us to keep an eye on it. She progressively got fatter (hey, we feed our cats well, don't judge) Then a few years later she started acting funny: missing the litter box, drinking an insane amount of water, looking real thin. So she a three night stay at the vet, just to find out she was a diabetic. Fast forward to today...Brandy was a little on the chubby side, and about the same age as the vet told us to really watch Psycho's weight, we got the same report for Brandy. She was one chunky monkey. So she had to go on a diet and weightloss plan.

Now I thought, how the heck do you get a CAT to exercise and eat properly. I can't even get hubby to do that and he's much less stubborn than our cats. It was a lot of hard work (for both me and Brandy). I changed our cats over to eating better food (I really had no idea how bad most manufactured pet foods are). I switched them over to entirely wet food to start. I've been feeding them Soulistic wet food. When you look at it, it really is what the food claims to be: if it is supposed to be tuna and shrimp, you really can see shrimp in there, same thing with chicken, there's shredded chicken it it. I really wanted to put them on an entirely RAW diet, but it just isn't cost effective. Then I found some grain free, low carbohydrate dry food (they're a big fan of Nature's Variety - Rabbit and Innova Evo - Herring and Salmon) to supplement them with to keep their tummy's full and making feeding easier, when we need someone to take care of them while we're away.

All the cats have seen an improvement from their menu change. Dumbledore's dry skin has cleared up, Minerva's sensitive tummy really seems to like the new food (she's actually keeping food down), Mia had ear allergies and constantly scratched at them before the new food, but that has now cleared up, and Brandy lost 2 pounds (that's like 20 people pounds)! She's finally in her optimal weight range, on the high side of it, but hey, she's doing great and I'm so proud of her. They're all very active and chase each other all over the place and don't seem as lazy or like they get tired as quickly anymore.

So if you can swing it, I highly recommend doing the same for your cats. Apparently they should really only be eating protein, as they are carnivores in nature, and the mass market cat food companies load the food down with potatoes (what cat hunts potatoes in the wild?), wheat, and crazy by products that just aren't good for them.

Much luck!

xoxo,
BB

I'm Seeing a Pattern

So I don't know if I've mentioned, but very recently I've taken up reading again. I used to read like crazy in my teens...seriously, I couldn't get enough books when I was younger. Then when I got to college and then bought my first business, reading kind of got put on the wayside. After my grandma passed away this summer, I picked up a book, and just couldn't stop reading. I've been reading at least a book per week. Now I'm trading books with my mom the way I remember mom and grandma tessie doing for many years.

But anyway, I use this application on Facebook called Goodreads (if you look to the right, you can take a peek at some of the books I've already read, and if you use goodreads too, I'd love to be your friend :) ). So I started looking at my list of to-read books to decide which I'm going to pick up next. And ya know, I noticed a pattern. I must really love food (I mean, I've always been pretty sure that I love food, but now I'm convinced). The majority of the books on my to-read list has some type of food in the title. Funny huh? I wonder why.....